I'm on Vacation!!!

Like the title says— I'm on vacation! I planned on going to Colorado. I actually planned on being there tonight, but my car needs work on before I attempt to run it over the mountains. I need new tires, struts, and a basic tune-up. I also have a damaged muffler... I hadn't planned on buying plane tickets, so I was too late to do that and renting a car for a week is expensive! So, I'm not going. I will be going to San Diego to visit my sister later this year, so not all is lost. I also have plenty of projects to work on. I should mention how easy it is to talk about projects compared to actually doing them— which is why I usually roll my eyes when I hear that someone I know wants to write a book. They'll never do it. Most people won't because most people don't realize how truly difficult it is actually write a book. I compare it to pulling teeth. It is so easy to start a project! It is SO difficult to actually finish a project. Many projects will never get done and I get it! It is hard.

The first project I finished was a short Naruto fanfiction I wrote back in college for a friend of mine. If you must know, it was about Madara and an original character. It was smut and it was terrible, but it was done. I wrote over 300,000 words on a PG-13 fanfiction I never even finished (and this was terrible— I will not subject anyone to read it). I spent most of highschool writing it. I even wrote two chapters while I was camping and even more while my dad was working in the garage during the summer. It's not going to get done. It will sit in the back of my mind for eternity before I actually decide to finish it.

The projects I finish are worth finishing to me. They hold a special significance to me. While I am on this week of vacation— I hope to make at least some progress. I have all the tools I could want. The projects I am working on this week include:

- The Mysterious Box (Hopefully I will be able to self-publish it in November)

- A Pixie Fairytale (I plan to self-publish next spring)

- Atlantis (just working on a detailed outline– I want to professionally publish this one as my breakout novel)

- Belle through the Mirrors (sequel to Faeryland: The Defeat of the Troll King- just working on the detailed outline- I would love to publish this next year)

- Dragon's Lament is on pause as I need to work on this project by itself– probably when the above are complete. I've tried to work on this project, but it competes for my attention with the others and I can't focus on it.

- Hot Air Balloons, Rac-COON!, and I am— the ideas will be worked out this week and how I want to complete them. I am just playing with too many ideas and different looks, so I'm not sure I know what exactly I want to do with each of them and until I do— they will be sitting in the back of my head.

Projects are difficult to complete. Just to figure out an outline and where you want something to go is difficult. To flesh out an outline is even more difficult as you have to be in that moment with the characters and know everything that is happening. Outlines work and guide to completion. Without an outline— nothing gets completed.

I think what makes projects so difficult is that in order to have something completely yours, you have to make infinite decisions and making so many decisions is difficult because once you decide on something in chapter one— you can't just take it out in chapter 12 as it will change the whole project. An outline will show if it works by chapter 12. I find I always have to go back and add things in chapter 1 as they evolve over the course of writing. It's easy to rewrite chapter 1. It isn't easy to rewrite everything after.

I make these decisions at the beginning so I don't get stagnate at the end. I only get stagnate in the middle. As I usually write to the middle and then I write from the middle to the end and then I connect the two. Sometimes the middle will balloon and sometimes it just needs that one chapter right in the middle to put everything together in a perfect package. Writing to an end is the goal, otherwise— you'll never get there.